Interview with Stephanie Barber

Here at Human Pyramids is an interview with Stephanie Barber in which she says lovely and challenging things about her work, in lower case, like:

. . . i am working within myself right now in a very particular way. i mean that i am pushing against my own ideas and my previous work in a way that was maybe not as possible to do when i didn't have such a large body of work. it is a very subtle feeling. like artistic proprioception. an interoceptive awareness of where i am in my art. this is a simultaneously abstract and specific feeling.

i'm unsure of how i feel about this morally. there is something about the hardcore individualist motivation in working like this--responding to previous work i have made--avoiding the tropes of previous stories--etc.--something about strident individualism which feels tawdry and propagandistic. the alternative seems either like being tossed around in the giantest ocean slammed by rocks and unnamed sea creatures or being in harmony and eternal dialog with all art ever made and about to be made.

One of the things I admire most about Stephanie's approach to art is her seriousness (her "interoceptive awareness" and her ability to frame her work morally). Another thing is her knack for simile (like being in the giantest ocean slammed by rocks and unnamed sea creatures).

Her book and a DVD of her films is called these here separated to see how they standing alone.

She will be performing at the Literary Death Match in Baltimore on Oct 30.

Here is a review of her book and DVD at PANK, written by JA Tyler.